Robby Müller

Robby Müller (1940, Willemstad, Curaçao; died 2018, Amsterdam) lived and worked in Amsterdam. One of the greatest cinematographers of his generation, Müller studied at the Netherlands Film Academy in the early 1960s before leaving for Germany as assistant to cinematographer Gérard Vandenberg, where he met Wim Wenders and began a partnership that would define both careers. Their sustained collaboration produced a series of road movies central to New German Cinema, including Alice in the Cities (1974), Kings of the Road (1976) and Paris, Texas (1984). From the late 1970s, Müller worked with directors including Peter Bogdanovich, William Friedkin, Alex Cox and Barbet Schröder. A remarkable collaboration with Jim Jarmusch yielded the exquisite black-and-white films Down by Law (1986) and Dead Man (1995), alongside Mystery Train (1989) with its bold use of colour. In the 1990s he met Lars von Trier, with whom he experimented with radical new techniques, like handheld video camera work in Breaking the Waves (1996) and Dancer in the Dark (2000). Across a four-decade career of almost 100 projects, he also worked with visual artists including Steve McQueen, shooting his Documenta 11 installation Carib's Leap (2002).

Müller's point of departure was always the story being told and the emotional resonance it evoked. Famed for his treatment of light and shadow, he had an instinctive gift for working with natural, available light when composing his characteristic wide shots and long takes. Alongside his film work, Müller maintained an extensive personal archive of Polaroid photographs — taken not as casual snapshots but as studies in light and composition, experimental investigations into the relationship between light, camera and eye. Made in moments between shoots, they document hotel rooms, urban patterns and the abstract play of reflection and shadow that he sought out during walks through foreign cities. There is a clear line between these Polaroids and his films: both are the work of a painter thinking through an instant medium, stilling a moment to understand how light moves. These were first exhibited publicly at EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (2016), and later at Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles (2019) and Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2020 and 2023).

Solo exhibitions include Amsterdam Photos, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (2023); Like Sunlight Coming Through The Clouds, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; Slash Gallery (WORM), Rotterdam; Case Chiuse HQ, Milan (2020); Robby Müller: Like Sunlight Coming Through The Clouds, Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles (2019); An Homage to Robby Müller, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2018); Master of Light, Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin (2017); and Master of Light, EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (2016).

Group exhibitions include Valentino Re-signify: Part Two, SKP-S, Beijing (2021); New Reproductions, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; Valentino Re-signify: Part One, Power Station of Arts, Shanghai (2020); On the Nature of Things, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2017); and Color & Motion, Ed van der Elsken Archives, Amsterdam (2014).